Off on a Comet

Chapter XXXV

In which the world of Gallia is launched, in imagination, into the
infinite stretches of space

A month passed away. Gallia continued its course,
bearing its little population onwards, so far removed from the ordinary
influence of human passions that it might almost be said that its sole
ostensible vice was represented by the greed and avarice of Isaac
Hakkabut, this sorry emblem of the human race.

After all, they were but making a voyage—a strange, yet a transient,
excursion through solar regions hitherto untraversed; but if the
professor’s calculations were correct—and why should they be
doubted?—their little vessel was destined, after a two years’ absence,
once more to return “to port.” The landing, indeed, might be a matter of
difficulty; but with the good prospect before them of once again standing
on terrestrial shores, they had nothing to do at present except to make
themselves as comfortable as they could in their present quarters.

Thus confident in their anticipations, neither the captain, the count,
nor the lieutenant felt under any serious obligation to make any
extensive provisions for the future; they saw no necessity for expending
the strength of the people, during the short summer that would intervene
upon the long severity of winter, in the cultivation or the preservation
of their agricultural resources. Nevertheless, they often found
themselves talking over the measures they would have been driven to
adopt, if they had found themselves permanently attached to their present
home.

Even after the turning-point in their career, they knew that at least
nine months would have to elapse before the sea would be open to
navigation; but at the very first arrival of summer they would be bound
to arrange for the Dobryna and the Hansa to retransport
themselves and all their animals to the shores of Gourbi Island, where
they would have to commence their agricultural labours to secure the
crops that must form their winter store. During four months or
thereabouts, they would lead the lives of farmers and of sportsmen; but
no sooner would their haymaking and their corn harvest have been
accomplished, than they would be compelled again, like a swarm of bees,
to retire to their semitroglodyte existence in the cells of Nina’s Hive.

Now and then the captain and his friends found themselves speculating
whether, in the event of their having to spend another winter upon
Gallia, some means could not be devised by which the dreariness of a
second residence in the recesses of the volcano might be escaped. Would
not another exploring expedition possibly result in the discovery of a
vein of coal or other combustible matter, which could be turned to
account in warming some erection which they might hope to put up? A
prolonged existence in their underground quarters was felt to be
monotonous and depressing, and although it might be all very well for a
man like Professor Rosette, absorbed in astronomical studies, it was ill
suited to the temperaments of any of themselves for any longer period
than was absolutely indispensable.

One contingency there was, almost too terrible to be taken into account.
Was it not to be expected that the time might come when the internal
fires of Gallia would lose their activity, and the stream of lava would
consequently cease to flow? Why should Gallia be exempt from the destiny
that seemed to await every other heavenly body? Why should it not roll
onwards, like the moon, a dark cold mass in space?

In the event of such a cessation of the volcanic eruption, whilst the
comet was still at so great a distance from the sun, they would indeed be
at a loss to find a substitute for what alone had served to render life
endurable at a temperature of 60 degrees below zero. Happily, however,
there was at present no symptom of the subsidence of the lava’s stream;
the volcano continued its regular and unchanging discharge, and Servadac,
ever sanguine, declared that it was useless to give themselves any
anxiety upon the matter.

On the l5th of December, Gallia was 276,000,000 leagues from the sun,
and, as it was approximately to the extremity of its axis major, would
travel only some 11,000,000 or 12,000,000 leagues during the month.
Another world was now becoming a conspicuous object in the heavens, and
Palmyrin Rosette, after rejoicing in an approach nearer to Jupiter than
any other mortal man had ever attained, was now to be privileged to enjoy
a similar opportunity of contemplating the planet Saturn. Not that the
circumstances were altogether so favourable. Scarcely 31,000,000 miles
had separated Gallia from Jupiter; the minimum distance of Saturn would
not be less than 415,000,000 miles; but even this distance, although too
great to affect the comet’s progress more than had been duly reckoned on,
was considerably shorter than had ever separated Saturn from the Earth.

To get any information about the planet from Rosette appeared quite
impossible. Although equally by night and by day he never seemed to quit
his telescope, he did not evince the slightest inclination to impart the
result of his observations. It was only from the few astronomical works
that happened to be included in the Dobryna’s library that any
details could be gathered, but these were sufficient to give a large
amount of interesting information.

Ben Zoof, for his part, did not care to learn any more about such a
planet; to him it was indispensable that the Earth should remain in
sight, and it was his great consolation that hitherto his native sphere
had never vanished from his gaze.

“If you can see the Earth, then all is not lost,” he kept repeating. But
at the distance that now separated Saturn from the Sun, the Earth was
quite invisible, even to the best eyes.

At this date Saturn was revolving at a distance of 420,000,000 miles from
Gallia, and consequently 874,440,000 miles from the sun, receiving only a
hundredth part of the light and heat which that luminary bestows upon the
Earth. On consulting their books of reference, the colonists found that
Saturn completes his revolution round the sun in a period of 29 years and
167 days, travelling at the rate of more than 21,000 miles an hour along
an orbit measuring 5,490 millions of miles in length. His circumference
is about 220,000 miles; his superficies, 144,000 millions of square
miles; his volume, 143,846 millions of cubic miles. Saturn is 735 times
larger than the Earth, consequently he is smaller than Jupiter; in mass
he is only 90 times greater than the Earth, which gives him a density
less than that of water. He revolves on his axis in 10 hours 29 minutes,
causing his own year to consist of 86,630 days; and his seasons, on
account of the great inclination of his axis to the plane of his orbit,
are each of the length of seven terrestrial years.

Although the light received from the sun is comparatively feeble, the
nights upon Saturn must be splendid. Eight satellites—Mimas, Enceladus,
Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Titan, Hyperion, and Japetus—accompany the planet;
Mimas, the nearest to its primary, rotating on its axis in 2212 hours,
and revolving at a distance of only 120,800 miles, whilst Japetus, the
most remote, occupies 79 days in its rotation, and revolves at a distance
of 2,314,000 miles.

Another most important contribution to the magnificence of the nights
upon Saturn is the triple ring with which, as a brilliant setting, the
planet is encompassed. To an observer at the equator, this ring, which
has been estimated by Sir William Herschel as scarcely 100 miles in
thickness, must have the appearance of a narrow band of light passing
through the zenith 12,000 miles above his head. As the observer, however,
increases his latitude either north or south, the band will gradually
widen out into three detached and concentric rings, of which the
innermost, dark though transparent, is 9,625 miles in breadth; the
intermediate one, which is brighter than the planet itself, being 17,605
miles broad; and the outer, of a dusky hue, being 8,660 miles broad.

Such, they read, is the general outline of this strange appendage, which
revolves in its own plane in 10 hours 32 minutes. Of what matter it is
composed, and how it resists disintegration, is still an unsettled
question; but it might almost seem that the Designer of the universe, in
permitting its existence, had been willing to impart to His intelligent
creatures the manner in which celestial bodies are evolved, and that this
remarkable ring-system is a remnant of the nebula from which Saturn was
himself developed, and which, from some unknown cause, has become
solidified. If at any time it should disperse, it would either fall into
fragments upon the surface of Saturn, or the fragments, mutually
coalescing, would form additional satellites to circle round the planet
in its path.

To any observer stationed on the planet, between the extremes of lat. 45
degrees on either side of the equator, these wonderful rings would
present various strange phenomena. Sometimes they would appear as an
illuminated arch, with the shadow of Saturn passing over it like the
hourhand over a dial; at other times they would be like a semi-aureole of
light. Very often, too, for periods of several years, daily eclipses of
the sun must occur through the interposition of this triple ring.

Truly, with the constant rising and setting of the satellites, some with
bright discs at their full, others like silver crescents, in quadrature,
as well as by the encircling rings, the aspect of the heavens from the
surface of Saturn must be as impressive as it is gorgeous.

Unable, indeed, the Gallians were to realize all the marvels of this
strange world. After all, they were practically a thousand times further
off than the great astronomers have been able to approach by means of
their giant telescopes. But they did not complain; their little comet,
they knew, was far safer where it was; far better out of the reach of an
attraction which, by affecting their path, might have annihilated their
best hopes.

The distances of several of the brightest of the fixed stars have been
estimated. Amongst others, Vega in the constellation Lyra is 100 millions
of millions of miles away; Sirius in Canis Major, 123 millions of
millions; the Pole-star, 282 millions of millions; and Capella, 340
millions of millions of miles, a figure represented by no less than
fifteen digits.

The hard numerical statement of these enormous figures, however, fails
altogether in any adequate way to convey a due impression of the
magnitude of these distances. Astronomers, in their ingenuity, have
endeavoured to use some other basis, and have found “the velocity of
light” to be convenient for their purpose. They have made their
representations something in this way:

“Suppose,” they say, “an observer endowed with an infinite length of
vision: suppose him stationed on the surface of Capella; looking thence
towards the Earth, he would be a spectator of events that had happened
seventy years previously; transport him to a star ten times distant, and
he will be reviewing the terrestrial sphere of 720 years back; carry him
away further still, to a star so remote that it requires something less
than nineteen centuries for light to reach it, and he would be a witness
of the birth and death of Christ; convey him further again, and he shall
be looking upon the dread desolation of the Deluge; take him away further
yet (for space is infinite), and he shall be a spectator of the Creation
of the spheres. History is thus stereotyped in space; nothing once
accomplished can ever be effaced.”

Who can altogether be astonished that Palmyrin Rosette, with his burning
thirst for astronomical research, should have been conscious of a longing
for yet wider travel through the sidereal universe? With his comet now
under the influence of one star, now of another, what various systems
might he not have explored! what undreamed-of marvels might not have
revealed themselves before his gaze! The stars, fixed and immovable in
name, are all of them in motion, and Gallia might have followed them in
their untracked way.

But Gallia had a narrow destiny. She was not to be allowed to wander away
into the range of attraction of another centre; nor to mingle with the
star clusters, some of which have been entirely, others partially
resolved; nor was she to lose herself amongst the 5,000 nebulae which
have resisted hitherto the grasp of the most powerful reflectors. No;
Gallia was neither to pass beyond the limits of the solar system, nor to
travel out of sight of the terrestrial sphere. Her orbit was
circumscribed to little over 1,500 millions of miles; and, in comparison
with the infinite space beyond, this was a mere nothing.